Chapter 8
For someone who considers exerting effort on practically everything “troublesome”, Shikamaru doesn’t exactly do the things he does decide to put his energy into by halves.
Throughout the rest of the week, he and Sakura continually drill her on everyone’s families until she can recite their contributions to the village by heart.
Naruto and Lee become unwitting participants in this when Sakura enlists them to help with her recitation early on, and subsequently discovers that they barely have any more idea than her what all the fuss is about.
She now knows that there are apparently four “noble” clans of Konoha—the Akimichi (Chouji), the Aburame (Shino), the Hyuuga (Hinata) and the Uchiha (Uchiha).
These clans were some of the first to join the village, and became known as “noble” for their clout in battle and their contributions to stabilizing the village’s infrastructure. The Akimichi and Aburame handled food growth and distribution, the Hyuuga helped set up the hospital and health care, and the Uchiha were the police.
There used to be a fifth “noble” clan, the Senju. They founded the village and served as administrators, but their line died out around the time of the Third Ninja War.
Other clans, like the Inuzuka (Kiba), the Nara (Shikamaru), and the Yamanaka (Ino), while no less important today than those first five, came a little later once stability had been mostly established.
The Inuzuka serve as trackers with their ninken while the Nara are tacticians and help fill the administrative gap left by the Senju.
The Yamanaka are in charge of the Torture and Interrogation department.
She and Naruto freeze up when this fact is revealed.
“O-oh.” She stutters, trying to tamp down her instinct to lunge across the table and beg Ino for any scraps of information regarding Otou-sama’s health and whereabouts.
She’s trying to be good, like Okaa-sama and Jimichi-san suggested, but it’s getting harder and harder with each day that passes.
It starts with children pointing her out to their parents when they were collected from the Academy, the adults quickly hustling their offspring away when they realized she could see them staring.
Then shops begin refusing to let Okaa-sama buy anything, saying the ryō she had was clearly counterfeit, threatening to have her locked up too if she tried to make a fuss. They have enough food to last them the week between what they’ve got in the pantry and Uchiha’s donations, but not much longer beyond that.
The dead birds that are left on their doorstep, with sad eyes and plucked grey wings and crushed eggs beside them, are just upsetting. She gives them burials in the back garden before Okaa-sama or Naruto can see them.
Maybe that’s why Naruto can suck in a quick breath, and ask, “What happens to people in Interrogation? The innocent ones?”
Ino looks like she wants to laugh—but then her mouth twists, pensive.
“They get food and water, and a bed.” She says, softly. “Interrogation might need to keep them longer, if they’re really helpful with intel gathering, but they all go home sooner or later.”
Naruto slumps, breath rushing out of him, and gives Ino a dazed smile. “Right. Good to know.”
He bites into his soba noodles and she looks back down at her own lunch, pretending she doesn’t feel the same heady rush of relief.
She ignores the little voice in her head that keeps saying Ino only told him what happened to the ones they thought were innocent.
She walks home with Naruto and Lee, like they’ve been doing all week.
This way, after they wash up the lunchboxes, they can make tomorrow’s lunch right away together, and she doesn’t have to worry about forgetfulness distracting her during training again.
Okaa-sama usually comes home by the time they’ve assembled their lunchboxes and put them into the fridge for tomorrow.
So it’s worrying that that she still hasn’t arrived an hour past her usual return time.
Lee suggests that she practice using her bokken on them to pass the time, so they can practice dodging and she can practice her strikes.
She shuts that down quickly by asking if they can do strength training by kneading bread.
Naruto chooses a recipe for melon bread from her cookbook, because they have a can of pureed melon from Uchiha.
“Plus it’s weird.” He says. “It’s called ‘melon bread’, but it’s not melon flavored? There should be a better name for it, believe it.”
Lee tilts his head. “It looks a bit like Katsu-san’s shell, so maybe tortoise bread?”
“That’s a much better name.” She nods. “I think we might have food coloring somewhere—wanna make it look like them?”
They chatter as they knead and experiment with color combinations that won’t turn brown when mixed with the melon. The purple of Katsu-san’s shell may be an unattainable dream.
Naruto complains loudly about “that dumb yellow turtle,” who told him something “mean” about Interrogation that he refused to divulge, no matter how many bowls of ramen he was promised.
They all do their best to ignore the rising tension in the air as the hours tick on and Okaa-sama still hasn’t come back.
Then, just as the bread’s ready to come out of the oven, the front door slams open.
“WE HAVE RETURNED!!” Gai-sensei yells.
Naruto and Lee rush out of the kitchen ahead of her, babbling a million questions a minute.
It’s probably because she has to shove the latest batch of bread onto a cooling rack and pull off the oven mitts before following them that she catches sight of her mother while Naruto and Lee receive hugs from Gai-sensei.
Her kimono collar is torn and her hair has been half-ripped out of its work bun and there’s a large blue-black bruise blooming along her left cheekbone.
Her breathing feels too shallow and blood’s pounding in her ears.
But—how—why—
Okaa-sama catches sight of her and her eyes go soft and sad. “Do we have any frozen peas, sweetheart?”
She nods, numbly, and goes back into the kitchen to the freezer.
She jumps and nearly elbows Gai-sensei in the stomach when his hand comes down on her shoulder.
“Mayu-chan.” He kneels down in front of her, brows drawn down over his eyes. “Your mother is alright. Her youthful spirit flows strong even in the face of disapproval of those who should call her a comrade.”
Her mouth works silently. The peas make a cracking sound as her grip on the bag tightens.
“Did you catch them?” She asks finally.
His brow furrows and he shakes his head. “Unfortunately, the unyouthful thieves were able to evade our search. Even my cool and hip rival and the most youthful Inuzuka Tsume were unable to track them. But they will be found and brought to justice, have faith in that.”
She swallows to making her voice sound less like a croak. “And then Otou-sama will come home again, right?”
Gai-sensei nods authoritatively, flashing her a thumbs up. “Of course!”
She thinks that she can maybe hold out a little while longer. She needs to be better, so they don’t hurt Okaa-sama, but that shouldn’t be too hard.
She tries to tell herself that she won’t let it be as two thirds of her family crowd around the dining table, being as loud and boisterous as they can to try and make up for the empty chair.
Otou-sama doesn’t come back that night either.
Okaa-sama waits up the whole night, or near enough that there’s hardly a difference.
She comes down to leave for training with Gai-sensei, and Okaa-sama’s still there, watching the sunrise spill light onto the street in her nightclothes with the now lukewarm bag of peas pressed to her cheek. Her mother startles badly when she touches her elbow gently.
She can’t keep her mind on her katas, despite all her efforts in the face of Gai-sensei’s encouragement.
Is Otou-sama alright? How much has he eaten in the past week? Are they hurting him?
Will he come back at all?
When this thought crystallizes, she has to duck behind a tree to be violently sick.
Gai-sensei finds her spitting bile and crying so hard she can’t stop herself. He offers her a packet of tissues to wipe her mouth with and pulls her into a one-armed hug, rubbing her shoulder soothingly.
It’s almost enough to make her believe everything will be right again when training ends and she goes home.
Not quite. But almost.
It feels strange.
She sees her mother’s puffy eyes (Okaa-sama didn’t go to bed like she suggested, even if she knows from one too many all-nighters at Uni that it’d be hellish to try and face today on no sleep), she sees Gai-sensei’s concerned glances between her and her mother, she faintly hears Lee and Naruto’s questions about how Okaa-sama’s feeling and when Otou-sama’s coming back—
But it’s like there’s a fog. Clouding her brain, making her head hurt. That’s blocking her from really feeling— everything.
She keeps expecting Otou-sama to open the front door, maybe with a black eye but no worse for wear, laughing about the mixup they had at his work, how it’s all a misunderstanding, how ridiculous it was anyone in a million years could ever suspect him—
Otou-sama misses breakfast.
Okaa-sama takes her aside before she and Naruto and Lee can go to the Academy for the day.
“We weren’t—” She purses her lips, twisting tight around the sob in her throat. “We were going to wait until you were ten. But—with your father—”
Okaa-sama can’t quite choke off that sob. She waits, patiently, until her mother can explain, can press the thing she’s holding into her little hands.
It’s not a knife or dagger. It’s too long for that, but not by much. It has a pretty sheath, grey decorated in red tomoe, and the blade gleams a cold silvery-blue when she pulls it out carefully.
“...Across the stomach, right?” She asks. That’s what she heard about hara-kiri from her past life, but she doesn’t want to get this wrong. Not when it’s Ketsugi honor on the line.
Okaa-sama blinks, drawing away from her, something like horror dawning across her face. “...N-no, sweetheart. Across the stomach is for men. We women do it across the throat. But that is not what this is to be used for. This is for self-defense only, alright? Mayu, promise me.”
She nods, not quite understanding what she needs defending from. Gai-sensei said there were only comrades in the village. She just needs to be good, and keep her head down, and they’ll stop hurting Okaa-sama and Otou-sama and realize they’re comrades too.
“Keep Naruto or Lee with you.” Her mother breathes, hugging her close and hard after tying an obi around her dress. It feels like the not-knife sticks out like a sore thumb beneath the bunched fabric. “Your Otou-san will be back soon. And we all need to be there to greet him, understand?”
“Yes, Okaa-sama.” She says, hugging her mother back, trying to convince herself that ritual suicide won’t be such a bad way to go if worst comes to worst, that she’s not afraid of death, that she has no right to be, given that she’s died once already.
Judging by the tears that gather in her eyes, she’s awful at persuasion.
She tries her best.
She’s even a little annoyed at the fog-headache, because while it keeps her from feeling all the awful truths and doubts about the situation, it also stops her from absorbing Mizuki-sensei’s lectures.
And she needs to be a model little tree-hugger if she wants Otou-sama to come home.
The pretty not-knife digs into her stomach whenever she moves. It’s very distracting.
Naruto and Chouji and Lee and Ino and Kiba and even Sasuke speak to her in careful tones of voice though. Like she might break if they go louder than a slow semi-whisper.
She wants to appreciate it. She really does. But, well. Brain fog. Makes it hard to concentrate.
Maybe the fog is also part of chakra? Distancing the host from their intentions and emotions to better manipulate them into mindlessly producing the energy it needs to feed. If she could just get Mizuki-sensei to listen, she could get the use of this stuff banned once and for all—
By the time she checks back in, she’s blinking up at Akamatsu Ami with the word “Traitor!” ringing in her ears.
“...S-sorry?” She asks, her voice wavering.
Ami huffs. “What are you, stupid? I said everybody knows your daddy is a filthy traitor to this village. Just watch, his execution will be scheduled before the day is up. Guess the Hokage will know not to take in slant-eyed scrap from Iron anymore.”
And Naruto is yelling and Ino is yelling and Kiba and Chouji, and Sakura is drawing back a fist to punch Ami square in the mouth, and she can’t understand that, because how does she dare? How does she dare to strike anyone—
Don’tshowagressionDon’tshowagressionDon’tshowagressionDon’tshowagressionDon'tshowagressionDon'tshowagressionDon'tshowagressionDon'tshowagressionDon’tshowagression—
—if she knows it’s forbidden? Sakura must be strong. So strong. Why did everyone hate Sakura in her past life if she could be this strong? Strong enough to flagrantly defy the essential rule—
Don’tshowagressionDon’tshowagressionDon’tshowagressionDon’tshowagressionDon'tshowagressionDon'tshowagressionDon'tshowagressionDon'tshowagressionDon’tshowagression—
—the one that she could never have the guts to defy, no matter how much it hurts? No matter how much she feels like she’s choking on the inaction? No matter how much it hurts to grit her teeth and clench her fists and bite down harder and harder and harder—
Don’tshowagressionDon’tshowagressionDon’tshowagressionDon’tshowagressionDon'tshowagressionDon'tshowagressionDon'tshowagressionDon'tshowagressionDon’tshowagression—
Huh.
She’s never heard Mizuki-sensei yell this loud before.
Naruto’s holding her hand and crying. Why is he crying? She tries to shush him, tell him it’s alright, but her just cries harder when her hand brushes his hair, his grip sure to bruise.
Then there’s the nice man with the scar on his nose kneeling on front of her.
“Hello Ketsugi-chan.” He says. “Do you know who I am?”
Of course she does. He’s the one who tries to be nice to Naruto. He’s not always successful, but he tries, which is more than she can say for Taki-sensei and Mizuki-sensei. She tries to tell him this, but it comes out illegible and half-burbled, her mouth burning.
She frowns. Stupid mind fog.
“Right.” The nice man says, frowning. She doesn’t want him to frown. She wishes she could give him a better answer. “Well, I’m Iruka-sensei. I’m going to take you to the hospital now, because you’ve bitten your poor lip very hard. Do you understand, Ketsugi-chan?”
She does and she doesn’t like it, because Okaa-sama said she wasn’t to go anywhere without Naruto or Lee, because if she does go somewhere without Naruto or Lee, she’ll have to commit ritual suicide with the pretty not-knife and then Otou-sama will never come home, because Okaa-sama said they all had to be there for him to be welcomed back, and she wants Otou-sama back, she wants Otou-sama, she wants—
“Easy Ketsugi-chan, easy, easy.” Iruka-sensei presses a hand to her chest, stopping her from inhaling until the pressure lightens, making her exhale when he presses down again. It should feel scary. It’s weird how it helps her focus on his words instead, “You’ll be okay if Naruto-kun and Lee-kun are with you?”
Yeah, that sounds fair. She nods rapidly so Iruka-sensei gets the message.
He grabs her head. His face looks scared, before he begins smiling again, uneasy. “Right. Okay.” He picks her up, cradling her against his green jacket.
It doesn’t feel like Otou-sama or Gai-sensei picking her up. It’s not bad, but not familiar. She squirms a little in his grip.
“Lee-san, can you come with us please?”
She can hear Lee, distantly. It sounds strange, like someone’s taken Lee’s voice and made it too high, too panicked. She wants to pat his head too, tell him it’s all okay, Otou-sama will come back before we know it.
Then they’re in the village, and then they’re in a white building with a lot of rushing people. It looks like a hospital.
“That’s because it is a hospital, Ketsugi-chan.” Iruka-sensei says, distracted.
Oh. That makes sense.
They make Iruka-sensei sit outside.
They try to make Naruto and Lee stay outside too, but she begins crying and Naruto begins crying and Lee gets shiny eyes and a wobbly lower lip, so eventually they let them in with her.
The nurse who takes her height and weight is nice, if a little too smiley. The smile is nice, soft and friendly, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes all the way. Like it’s pasted onto her face.
Her smile goes weird and rigid when Naruto and Lee suddenly begin drooping like they’re tired and she grabs their hands hard to wake them back up. She walks out of the room quickly, without saying a word to any of them.
The doctor is even more nice, so that makes up for the weird smiley nurse.
The doctor frowns and says there wasn’t a nurse, but he’s more focused on doing something to Mayu’s mouth which involves a pretty green glow, so she forgives him for being a bit oblivious.
She gets a lollipop that the nice doctor says is for later, and she tells him obviously, they haven’t even had lunch yet, it’s very important to eat a proper lunch before you can have dessert, otherwise you’ll fill up on nothing but sugar and feel sick later.
Naruto lets out a watery laugh and the doctor tells her she’s very right, that she should be a nutritionist when she’s older, and pats her head.
She accepts the head pat but regrettably tells the doctor she’s going to be too busy being a pirate chef to be a nutritionist, but thank you for the offer.
The doctor tells her that’s okay as Naruto hugs her a little too tight and Lee tells her he thinks she could become the best ninja nutritionist AND a pirate chef if she wanted to when Okaa-sama and Gai-sensei burst in.
So apparently she bit her lip so hard, her teeth ended up going clean through it.
There’s now a small, white scar on her lower lip, and another on the flesh-colored bit under it where it meets her chin. The nice doctor says it should fade in a couple of years.
It makes her feel sort of gross to think about it too hard, so she tries not to.
She gets a lot of hugs, for some reason.
From Okaa-sama, who manages to confiscate the not-knife with a stern look sometime between the second and the third, and she doesn’t try to hide how much easier it is to breathe without it digging into her.
From Gai-sensei, who’s bawling about youth and strength and relying on others and youth and somehow has managed to sweep Iruka-sensei into the hug as well, despite the scarred man’s sputtering and attempts to escape.
Okaa-sama tries to insist that he come round for dinner, but he says a lot of things about not wanting to impose and favoritism, so eventually they haggle him down to treating him to Ichiraku’s some time.
Nobody can turn down Ichiraku’s.
Naruto and Lee have been all but attached to her side since the nice doctor told them she’d be fine, but maybe don’t yawn too widely for a few weeks. Naruto somehow managed to smuggle her lollipop away from her during the walk home and is now eating it.
When she protests, he pulls it out of his mouth with a sour look. “Mayu-chan, you bit yourself so bad I thought you were gonna die. There was blood everywhere, believe it. Imma need the-ra-pee to get over it.”
“Therapy doesn’t mean you get all my desserts, Naruto.” She replies.
He raises his eyebrows in challenge, lollipop firmly in his cheek.
“Fine.” She grouses, leaning more into Lee, who has been moved to tears by Gai-sensei’s third rendition of the importance of relying on your comrades and not shouldering burdens alone.
They end up sort of—collapsing. Once they’re back home.
It’s been a very stressful week for all of them.
Guy-sensei is chuffed seven ways to Sunday once he finds out about the tortoise melon bread, which somehow managed to go uneaten in all the fuss of the previous night, so they end up tearing those apart to share as a light lunch.
Her mother soon drops off, curled up in her armchair, while Gai-sensei ends up snoring on the couch. She regales Naruto and Lee with her best rendition of One Piece’s Alabasta Arc, half-drowsing in the sunlight.
Lee’s especially enamored with the idea of Luffy’s techniques and the Dugong Gang.
The Harunos drop by late into the afternoon, bearing their bags and lunchboxes which Mizuki-sensei apparently foisted upon them after school ended, so they share that between them as a late afternoon snack.
There’s an unspoken consensus that tonight’s dinner will be Ichiraku’s takeout.
She’s taking down everyone’s orders when there’s a knock at the door.
There’s a man with familiar blue eyes and blonde hair standing there when she answers the door.
She doesn’t hear what he says, because hanging over his shoulder, hardly standing under his own steam is—
“OTOU-SAN!!”
She can barely hear the ragged cry that tears itself from her throat because she’s barreling forward, slamming into her father and holding on as tightly as she can.
His hakama feels stiff and crusty under her fingers, and he stinks of sweat and copper.
But she doesn’t care about any of that, doesn’t care that she’s bawling like a helpless little eight year old right here in the street, because her Otou-san is back, he’s here, he’s home.
The fingers he runs over her hair are rough due to the bandages that cover them, and his face is bruised when he pulls her cheeks up to look at her, grinning widely around a split lip and a broken nose held together with gauze.
“I’m home, Mayu.” He says.
And she begins crying all over again, and Naruto barrels into him on her other side, equally snotty nosed, then Lee, and Okaa-san, kissing all of his bruises and choking out a “welcome back” right before Gai-sensei slams into them, toppling everyone to the ground as he wails harder than anyone else.
Later she’ll learn the blonde man is Ino’s dad, and she’ll make the girl so much pudding that the Yamanaka won’t need to purchase that product for a month. She’ll also make Sakura enough anmitsu that she can’t look at the dessert for a week.
She’ll learn that her father has bandages on his hands because his fingernails were ripped out, and it takes a long and painful time for them to grown back in before he can even think about holding his bokken like he used to. That he did end up helping the village once Yamanaka-san met with him, because the thieves tried to scatter around money and symbols from other nations to throw everyone off the scent, but he knew the ryō from Iron was twenty years out of date, and all the others were tarnished with age, except for—
And then her mother will tell her to stop eavesdropping and go to bed, which she will, but not without much whining beforehand.
But right now, she revels in the slightly crushing weight and squirming limbs of her family around her, and begins laughing wetly through her tears.